Here’s a press release from Milspouse.com announcing this year’s 2012 Branch Winners in the 2012 Military Spouse of the Year. Congratulations to the finalists!

The votes have been tallied and the six branch winners of the 2012 Armed Forces Insurance’s Military Spouse of the Year presented by Military Spouse Magazine have been selected. The 2012 branch winners are:

Air Force, Jeremy Hilton of Burke, Virginia
Army, El Brown of Monterey, California
Coast Guard, Jennifer Bassett of Astoria, Oregon
Marine Corps, Stephanie Geraghty of Jacksonville, NC
Navy, Erin Strasburger of Virginia Beach, VA
National Guard, Christine Gilbreath of Crowley, Texas

The finalists for this award were selected through an online vote open to all Americans. Learn more about the individual Branch Winners at http://www.milspouse.com
The final round of voting for the 2012 Military Spouse of the Year will commence on February 14th and end on March 5th after which the overall winner for 2012 will be selected and announced.

“Each of our six branch winners are standout candidates and could easily win the Military Spouse of the Year title,” said Babette Maxwell, Military Spouse magazine founder and executive editor. “All Americans should cast votes for the spouse they feel will best lead the entire military spouse community.” Voters can view the finalists’ profiles and video submissions at http://www.milspouse.com
The overall 2012 Military Spouse of the Year (MSOY) winner will be announced at the fifth annual MSOY Awards Ceremony in Washington, D.C. The ceremony will be held on May 10 at 8th & I, the U.S. Marine Corps’ oldest active post, home of General Amos, Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, and the historic site of the Marine Corps’ evening parades.

In 2011, the MSOY Awards were honored by the attendance of Senator Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), Senator Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wa.), Medal of Honor Recipient Major Drew Dix and the spouses of all 10 senior officers and senior enlisted in every service branch. 2011 also marked the first year the Gabriel Giffords Award for Courage was announced and will be an annual part of the MSOY Awards ceremony.

The Military Spouse of the Year represents the millions of past and present military spouses who continue to thrive in a wartime environment, dedicate their lives and families to service of a grateful nation and give back to a community in need.

“As America’s warriors have honorably served our nation this past 10 years in deployment after deployment, military spouses have dutifully served here at home,” said Lieutenant General Garry L. Parks (U.S. Marine Corps, Ret.), Chairman of Armed Forces Insurance (AFI). “AFI is delighted to once again sponsor the Military Spouse of the Year Award, which appropriately recognizes both their personal sacrifices and overall contributions to military families and units that span the world.”

You can read the full press release here.

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A gripping panorama: World War II pilot is military museum's 2,000th Veterans Oral History Project subject (with video). Charles P. Evans got a bird’s eye view of Normandy the day before D-Day while on one of 30 harrowing bombing missions he was assigned to during World War II. The 94-year-old Wilton resident recounted those missions and other incredible stories during a fascinating Veterans Oral History Project session at the New York State Military Museum on Lake Avenue. An Army Air Corps pilot, Evans was the 2,000th person interviewed for the program that began 12 years ago...
(Saratogian)

Long-distance couples rely on technology. A military wife-to-be and a country romance, a future preacher's wife and an international bond. These couples are in a variety of relationship situations but despite their differences, they use technology to help maintain their love and remain connected. The continuous changes in technology are redefining the way relationships can work. Increases in online dating and the social media available are just a few ways technology plays a role in the dating scene...
(The Ball State Daily News)

US Seeks to Mine Social Media to Predict Future.  The U.S. government is seeking software that can mine social media to predict everything from future terrorist attacks to foreign uprisings, according to requests posted online by federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Hundreds of intelligence analysts already sift overseas Twitter and Facebook posts to track events such as the Arab Spring. But in a formal "request for information" from potential contractors, the FBI recently outlined its desire for a digital tool to scan the entire universe of social media -- more data than humans could ever crunch...
(Military.com)

Daughters tweet support for Zardari. After keeping a low profile on micro-blogging site Twitter for a while, president Asif Ali Zardari's two daughters are out to defend their father at a time when the PPP-led government is facing challenges from the judiciary and the military. Bakhtawar and Aseefa Bhutto-Zardari , who have focused on 'safe' tweets in the past year or so, are back with a bang by saying things such as, "PPP is not a party of cowards" . "People cry over immunity but forget my father spent 11-and-a-half-years in prison without a single conviction," Bakhtawar said in a tweet...
(The Times of India)

Two Officers Counter Bleak Assessment of Afghan War. A week ago, The New York Times (and At War) published pieces about an Army lieutenant colonel, Daniel L. Davis, who felt that the war in Afghanistan was not going well and that senior American military officials were not being honest about it. Lt. Col. Davis’ assertions, detailed in an unclassified report and an essay in Armed Forces Journal , have prompted much debate, pro and con. Below, two special forces officers, one an American who spent last year working with Afghan forces, and the other an Afghan, offer a different view...
(The New York Times)

TacticalGear.com Partners with The Mission Continues. TacticalGear.com has partnered with The Mission Continues, a St. Louis-based nonprofit that challenges post-9/11 veterans to rebuild purpose through community service. The online superstore for tactical gear joined forces with the service organization in order to bring donation opportunities to its customer base, which is comprised of military and public safety professionals.Through the partnership, customers of TacticalGear.com have the ability to make a donation during the checkout process. Customers can select a donation amount with all proceeds going to The Mission Continues...
(PRNewswire)

Jolie’s film about Bosnia touches off deep divisions there.  Angelina Jolie’s new movie — a love story set against the genocide of Bosnia’s war — will be shown in Sarajevo for the first time on Tuesday, but it already has touched off anger left over from the conflict. Muslim Bosniaks have said they expect “In the Land of Blood and Honey” to focus on their plight during the brutal 1992-1995 war. But the distributor in the Serb part of Bosnia said he won’t show it there because it portrays Serbs as the villains and they wouldn’t put up with that...
(The Washington Post)

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LLMW or Veteran Military Wife as she goes by online, has compiled a big list of all the overseas military Facebook support groups and pages in Europe.

The list was posted to her blog Life Lessons of a Military Wife at the end of January and continues to grow.

While the DoD Social Media Hub that I've written about several times is certainly comprehensive, you have to scroll through hundreds of entries to find information and the online database only includes official DoD social media sites. For the military and their families in Europe, LLMW's list makes it easy to find the information you need by country like Germany.

LLMW writes:

I’ve been compiling a list.  It is a list of Facebook groups and pages.  Many of these Facebook support groups and pages I am a member of but not all.  I thought I would take the time to share the ones I know, in case you are headed to Europe or are already here and looking for an opportunity to connect or share information.  It has been amazing to me in just the last six months or so, many of these groups didn’t even exist. 

Through the effort and willingness of these group owners, spouses and military folks (and even some expat Americans and travelers), we are sharing a wealth of information you can’t get anywhere else.  I’ve noticed if you have a question or concern about something, many times, someone else has already addressed it and can point you in the right direction….sometimes within minutes. 

I still remember reading about a young lady who was so frazzled after her car skidded into the ditch on one of our narrow European country roads, her first thought was to post for help on her local military spouse Facebook group page rather than hunting for the local police telephone number.  Or the military wife who absolutely needed an important ingredient from the grocery store to help make her concoction for dinner guests when both the commissary and local stores were closed for the day.  Someone offered the item up almost immediately.  They just happened to have it on-hand at home and were willing to assist.  That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about. 

Without further delay…

Check out the big list here and submit suggestions to help keep the list current.

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VIEWPOINT: Military's Social Media Rules Cross the Line. A recent Army News Service story out of Fort Benning got me thinking. It got me thinking about what liberties soldiers give up to serve their country -- the liberties they willingly yield, and the liberties they shouldn't have to give up no matter what. It seems that if you're a soldier, you aren't free to express your opinions even in the comfort of your own home -- because according to the ARNEWS article, posting the wrong thing on Facebook can get you punished under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Let's be clear here: We're not talking only about posting sensitive material that could violate operational security. Of course that's prohibited, and of course it should be...
(Fort Stewart Patch)

Kim Jong Un still alive: Officials deny Twitter claims that North Korean leader is dead. What do Eddie Murphy, Drake, Scott Baio and now Kin Jung Un have in common? They’ve been prematurely killed off on Twitter.vU.S. military officials have shot down rumors that Kim, the newly installed North Korean leader, was assassinated during a visit to China.vOfficials told CNN.com late Friday that they found no evidence that the "supreme leader" was dead, despite what the unsuspecting masses were busy tweeting...
(NYDailyNews)

In ‘Act of Valor,’ a Secret Military World, Approved for Public Viewing. The film “Act of Valor” in which active-duty members of the Navy Seals more or less play themselves, had its New York City premiere on Thursday and is scheduled to open in nearly 3,000 theaters nationwide on Feb. 24. Rarely has a movie created as much buzz in the military community. The project began in 2007 as a recruiting film for Naval Special Warfare after the Pentagon had ordered special operations across the services to expand their ranks...
(NYTimes)

US Seeks To Mine Social Media To Predict Future. The U.S. government is seeking software that can mine popular social media networking sites to predict everything from future terrorist attacks to foreign uprisings, according to requests posted online by federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Hundreds of intelligence analysts already sift overseas Twitter and Facebook posts to track events such as the Arab Spring...
(CBS Washington)

Kenya army is on Twitter, but it’s not sharing much. If you are a journalist, of all the East African armies, Uganda’s is the one you have to like. The Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) loves to either leak or officially provide information — especially if it has won a good victory or wants to demoralise the enemy with propaganda. The Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF) will, typically, set up an efficient information operation and give you lots of material, but it will not be dramatic news. However, it will also establish a good leaking network. The problem is that it will be an arms-length operation, so that it can credibly deny it if necessary...
(The East African)

Scam strikes military family. The Tuscola County Sheriff’s Office issued a warning to residents this week after receiving a report of a fraudulent scam. “Deputy Robinson took a report of an elderly woman in Tuscola County who was scammed out of (a large sum of money),” said Undersheriff Glen Skrent. “She had received a call that her grandson was in jail and she needed to send the money...
(Tuscola Today)

Egypt: SCAF’s love letter to its supporters. CAIRO: Egypt’s Supreme Council for the Armed Forces (SCAF) issued a love letter Sunday to the Egyptian people who did not take part in the general strike Saturday and published it on Facebook. “You great people proved these days and through the ages that you are the teacher and you are our inspiration,” the statement began...
(Bikya Masr)

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By now this story of an Army spouse blogger who goes by the name Catie has been told many times. 

I tweeted about it yesterday and also sent out a newsletter, but I figured I'd post something quick about it here today, being that I served in the National Guard until 2010 and did two deployments, one to Afghanistan in 2004 and another to Iraq in 2007.

If you're not familiar with what happened, a military spouse blogger whose now defunct blog "Army Wife, Army Life" is no longer online, posted a story on her blog called "Stirring the pot..." this past Wednesday.  You can still read her blog through the nifty Google webcache.

And she made some zany claims like:

"The Vermont National Guard is just that, they are State Militia. The Hubs is a federal soldier. The National Guard spouses around here like to refer to themselves as 'Army Wives'. They aren't. I respect their significant others for the things that they do, but they are not, by any stretch of the imagination, soldiers.

 That being said, the Hubs is not a Marine, he is not a Sailor, he is not an Airman. He is a Soldier. A dog is not a cat, it'll never meow."

Talk about insulting. 

I mean, she might as well have said she hates the National Guard and the only thing they’re good for is filling sand bags to prevent flooding.  

It probably would've been nicer. 

What normal person says this stuff? 

If you haven't paid a visit to SpouseBUZZ, make sure to check out the related articles.

Amy Bushatz's story over at SpouseBUZZ that was published on Friday has over 100 comments from spouses, supporters, veterans and soldiers expressing their opinion.  It’s got lots of good commentary and updates.

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Kim Jong-Un Death Rumor Sparks Twitter Frenzy. Rumors of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un’s death took Twitter by storm Friday. The report, which originated on the Chinese microblogging service Weibo, has not been substantiated by any formal press. But that didn’t stop it from going viral on the Internet. “Kim Jong-Un” is currently trending on Twitter and ranks sixth among Friday’s top 10 Google searches...
(Mashable)

1st AFP chief joins Twitter; soldiers not followers yet. Now that he’s getting the hang of it, will he now communicate with his Commander-in-Chief via Twitter? Upon the prodding of his children, the head of the 125,000-strong Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has joined the social networking craze. On Friday, AFP Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Jessie Dellosa opened an account on Twitter...
(Inquirer.net)

The Afghanistan Report the Pentagon Doesn't Want You to Read. Earlier this week, the New York Times’ Scott Shane published a bombshell piece about Lt. Colonel Daniel Davis, a 17-year Army veteran recently returned from a second tour in Afghanistan. According to the Times, the 48-year-old Davis had written an 84-page unclassified report, as well as a classified report, offering his assessment of the decade-long war. That assessment is essentially that the war has been a disaster and the military's top brass has not leveled with the American public about just how badly it’s been going."
(Rolling Stone)

U.S. Air Force May Buy 18,000 Apple IPad2s for Flight Crews. The U.S. Air Force may buy as many as 18,000 iPad2s in what would be one of the military’s biggest orders of computer tablets, accelerating Apple Inc.’s inroads into the federal government. The service’s Air Mobility Command plans to issue a request for proposals to buy between 63 and 18,000 “iPad 2, Brand Name or Equal devices” to lighten the load of flight crews, according to a notice posted on the Federal Business Opportunities website...
(BusinessWeek)

Victim calls fake Iraq War vet scam 'Disgusting'. 11Alive News has brought you many heart warming stories about the generosity shown to wounded war veterans. Unfortunately, this story will probably make your blood boil. It's about a wanted man who is taking advantage of that generosity. Even worse, he's a man who doesn't deserve it.  "This guy needs to be caught and put away for a while 'til he learns his lesson," said Richard Dain of Duluth...
(11alive.com)

Egypt’s military junta Facebook page admin accuses AUC of incitement. The administrator of the official Facebook page of Egypt’s ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) posted a message on Thursday dedicated to the American University in Cairo (AUC), questioning the university about its role in the country. The page questioned that AUC was “one of the tools” used by the American government its security forces “in toppling and destabilizing Egypt.”
(Bikya Masr)

Iran allegedly cuts off Internet access. Iran has cut off access to the Internet, leaving millions of people without email. A source inside the country confirmed this morning that Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo email is no longer available. Ditto for Facebook. So far, the government has not made any announcement about the service interruption. But cyber-sophisticated Iranians are still able to circumvent the government by using proxy servers over VPN connections...
(CBS News)

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Notable military blogger Colby Buzzell, who is the author of My War: Killing Time in Iraq and once wrote a highly acclaimed blog from Iraq in the mid-2000s called My War, has published an opinion piece in The Washington Post this past week called, “Don’t throw veterans an Iraq victory parade”.

If you’re a fan of Colby, this piece is very much written in the style of Colby that many have enjoyed over the years.

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

The Iraq war is over. Should we throw a parade?

After all, the Super Bowl champion New York Giants got one this past week, complete with 30 tons of confetti falling from the Manhattan sky.

The event made many wonder whether a similar celebration should be held in honor of our soldiers who served in Iraq. Some veterans groups started asking, hey, wait a minute, where’s our confetti? But the top brass smacked the idea down: “We simply don’t think a national-level parade is appropriate while we continue to have America’s sons and daughters in harm’s way,” said a spokesman for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

I’m not all that concerned with parades, not in a big city or a small town, at halftime or any other time. What concerns me is the day after the parade, the day after the Sept. 11 anniversary events, the day when the flags are put away and America stops cheering and it’s back to business as usual. That’s what scares me.

Less than 2 percent of Americans serve in the military, and for them, a parade would be just another superficial acknowledgment of a sacrifice that has not been shared and certainly not celebrated.

Full story here.

Thanks to Jennifer Lee for the tip.

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Facebook users receive computer virus over fake WWIII news stories. Has Facebook alerted you to World War III breaking out? The good news is, it's not true. The bad news is you probably now have a computer virus. A fake news page saying "US attacks Iran and Saudi Arabia, the begin (sic) of World War 3" is the latest virus scam to circulate on Facebook. The story uses CNN's logos, and appears to offer video footage of a breaking news story, but says users need to upgrade their Flash video software to watch...
(Herald Sun)

New military chief sends first tweet. MANILA, Philippines—It’s not just celebrities and news personalities who are now using the popular micro-blogging site Twitter, even the new chief of the Armed Forces is tweeting out his thoughts. Armed Forces Chief Lieutenant General Jessie Dellosa opened his Twitter account, @CSAFPDellosa Friday morning. His first tweet read: “This is the official twitter account of the Chief of Staff, AFP. Thank you to the first followers.”
(Inquirer.net)

Social Media Misuse Punishable Under UCMJ. FORT BENNING, Ga. -- Soldiers who use social media must abide by the terms outlined in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. "Commenting, posting or linking to material that violates the UCMJ or basic rules of Soldier conduct is prohibited," said Staff Sgt. Dale Sweetnam of the Online and Social Media Division, Office of the Chief of Public Affairs. "Talking negatively about supervisors or releasing sensitive information is punishable under the UCMJ. It's never appropriate to be disrespectful of superior officers or NCOs, no matter if you're in the company area or posting to Facebook at your desk at home."
(Military.com)

U.S. Marines Photographed With Nazi Symbol in Afghanistan. Ten U.S. Marines were photographed in Afghanistan with a flag bearing a symbol associated with the Nazi SS in World War II, in a case the Marine Corps called a naive mistake. Reports of the incident followed the Internet release last month of a video showing Marines urinating on dead Taliban fighters, a case that brought condemnation from U.S. officials and a military investigation...
(Bloomberg)

Former Khmer Rouge Prisoners Sell Story of Their Lives. The United Nations-backed war crimes tribunal in Cambodia has ordered the Khmer Rouge’s main jailer to spend the rest of his life in prison for crimes it says were “among the worst in recorded history.” The tribunal said Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch oversaw a “factory of death” in the 1970’s at the feared Tuol Sleng Prison, where an estimated 14,000 people died...
(Voice of America)

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Troy Steward a military blogger and veteran who has a lot of military experience, is offering up his own personal opinion on the MEDEVAC debate in a story titled, “Why are members of Congress listening to idiots like Mike Yon?”.

“I have been largely silent on the recent topic in the news about arming MEDEVACS and removing the red crosses painted on them. This all started with a self-loving douche named Mike Yon.

Let me be clear, Mike Yon was in the Army. He was in Special Forces for a short-time period. Actually his time in the Army was short. He also killed a man in bar-fight right after earning his Green Beret. Good for him for his short service, at least it was service. Shame on him for bringing embarrassment to the Army for killing a civilian in a bar-fight. He never served in combat, but that is ok. There are many that have never served in combat.

So lets look at these credentials. He knows good military training, from back in the day. He also knows how to take another person’s life, granted not for good or justifiable reasons.”

Full story here.

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There's a Part 2 to the "Where Have All the Milblogs Gone" by military blogger David Marron.

In response to my post yesterday there has been some reaction.

The Armorer believes that “[s]ome of it is fashion - blogging is old hat now, and has been impacted both by ubiquity (gone are our days of 10K+ visits) which lead to niche choices - just like the proliferation of cable channels reduced the no-other-choice artificial numbers of the big TV nets. Social media has changed dramatically, with Facebook and Twitter being much easier to use (and tailor who receives the data) than maintaining a blog.” But he also goes on to say that, “So, many of the more prominent voices... are negative. Even when they are also positive. DoD can't really impact those of us not drawing active duty pay. But they can act on the voices in the sandboxes.”

John Lilyea of This Ain’t Hell writes that “[t]his must be a recent phenomenon, because under the Bush years, it was encouraged.”

But I can’t say that it was encouraged under the Bush Administration because by 2006 the first Social Media policy was released by the Army. At the time Blackfive said in an interview with Fox News, “The regulation was either poorly written or intended to crack down on bloggers…”

Full story here.

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On Navy Warships, the Web Slows to a Crawl. ABOARD THE U.S.S. WASP — This 40,000-ton assault ship can launch deadly sea and air attacks against enemies ashore and afloat. Just don’t expect it to load a website in under three minutes. The big-deck ship is a formidable floating base for sailors and Marines — who had better prefer to stay in limited contact with the outside world in their off-hours. The communications infrastructure onboard is a reminder that the Wasp began its service to the Navy in 1989: the flight control station has a big, black telephone with a big, black spiral cord attached...
(Wired.com)

Pro-military Facebook page falsely claims Ahram Online reporters are 'paid' ElBaradei partisans. A pro-SCAF Facebook page posted a photo of six people sitting at computer screens in a couple of desk partitions, saying they were “paid followers of former presidential hopeful Mohamed ElBaradei, as well as other presidential candidates”. Ahram Online stress the allegation is completely baseless. As a matter of fact, the six people are Ahram Online reporters as the posted photo was taken in the portal’s office over a year ago by the socialist activist and journalist Hossam El-Hamalawy, who used to work for Ahram Online. The photo was taken 2 December 2010, a few hours before Sepp Blatter, FIFA president, announced that Qatar would host the 2022 World Cup...
(Ahram Online)

Sources: HPD questions hired veteran’s war hero story. Houston police thought they hired a war hero to help officers handle troubled vets suffering from post traumatic stress, now sources say the FBI is investigating whether the man ever went to war. KHOU 11 News first met Paul Schroeder in February of last year when we featured him in a story about PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder...
(kbou Houston)

Occupy Afghanistan. In an essay for Armed Forces Journal, Army Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis writes that after traveling across Afghanistan and speaking with more than 250 soldiers in the field,  “What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by U.S. military leaders about conditions on the ground.” Further down he continues, “I witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level.” It’s hard to disagree. Davis’s essay comes weeks after the top-secret 2011 National Intelligence Estimate on Afghanistan finds that security gains in the Afghan war are unsustainable, and that pervasive corruption, government incompetence, and militant safe havens in Pakistan have undercut progress...
(Cato @ Liberty)

Egypt bloggers, journalists come under fire in recent clashes. CAIRO: Journalists and bloggers have come under fire in Egypt, the most recent spate of media directed violence and attacks carried out by the country’s security forces. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemned the attacks on media personnel attempting to cover the recent clashes between police and protesters in Egypt, which began last Thursday...
(Bikya Masr)

Media Comment: The future of army radio. Military broadcasting services exist in many countries, and all share the common dilemma of attempting to serve military interests without losing credibility with an audience accustomed to civilian broadcasting. In the UK, there is the British Forces News, with three radio networks broadcasting, at present, to 23 countries and two television channels with satellite broadcasting to 17 countries...
(JPost)

Channel 4 to look at the real story of the War Horses. War Horse: The True Story will show the extraordinary and deeply moving story of the million British horses who served in WWI. The true story is, Channel 4 say, even more epic than the new Spielberg feature film. The documentary will tell the real life stories of the horses as seen through archive footage and rare testimony from World War One veterans who worked with horses. There will also be sequences with experts such as former RSPCA Chief Vet Mark Evans, historian Richard van Emden and British Army expert Dr David Kenyon, combined with the latest historical research...
(ATV Today)

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VIA American Forces Press Service:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7, 2012 – For 45 minutes yesterday, Pentagon Press Secretary George Little traded a range of 140-character questions and answers with hundreds of users of the online social networking service called Twitter.

Topics included the situation in Syria, Defense Department energy-saving efforts, cooperation between the military services and international development organizations, unmanned aerial vehicles, wounded warriors, tensions with Iran, military benefits for same-sex partners, cyber threats and many more.

“I thoroughly enjoyed the first DOD Twitter town hall,” Little told American Forces Press Service, adding that he appreciated engaging with the “Twitterverse.”

In 2011, Twitter estimated that it had 300 million users worldwide.

“Social media is now an important forum for addressing topics of concern to troops and family members and the American public,” Little said, “so it makes sense to engage not just in traditional formats, but on the Internet.”

Difficult topics can be a challenge on Twitter because of the 140-character limit, the press secretary acknowledged. “But you can do multiple tweets, and you can also point people through Web links to other sources that have more material,” he said.

Little, whose Twitter handle is @PentagonPresSec, said he needed some help to keep the rapid-fire session efficient. “I decided which [questions] to answer,” he said. “I had some colleagues helping me manage the inflow of questions, but the answers were my own.” Participating tweeters marked their questions with the hashtag #AskDOD.

Following is a sampling of Little’s answers to questions posed during the session:

-- @13monsters asks about Libya v. Syria. Each difficult situation, but approaches to dealing with crises must be case-by-case.

-- @BrandiMaples asks about PTSD. #troops screened on redeployment and 3-6 mos after return. Committed to diagnosing & treating.

-- @antman311 asks about unmanned systems and Global Hawk. We will continue to invest in UAVs. Key intel and targeting tool.

-- @moberhoffner asks about #energysecurity. DoD has major efforts underway led by @ASD_Sharon Burke to improve battlefield energy efficiency.

-- @scott__diller asks re: wounded warriors. We do everything possible to support WWs. Visited WWs in Ger on Fri. Many want to return to serve!

After several people asked about DOD energy conservation efforts, Sharon E. Burke, assistant secretary of defense for operational energy plans and programs, leapt in to help.

“@ASD_SharonBurke DOD Energy / DoD energy security means better defense, less risk, lower costs, from geostrat to tactics see @pentagonpressec #askDOD,” she tweeted.

“There were several good questions,” Little said. “They varied widely, but I certainly after this experience see the power of this format. On certain issues you can connect people to other organizations. You can address very briefly a national security issue, and you can dialogue directly with people without filters.”

Little said he may do more Twitter town hall events. Today, a few of the questions from yesterday's town hall are being answered through the @DeptofDefense account on Twitter.

More here.

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The ‘Stan: An officer’s unvarnished view. An Army officer is fed up with “rosy official statements” that paint Afghanistan as a picture of progress, and he is demanding military leaders come clean about the “absence of success on virtually every level.” “How many more men must die in support of a mission that is not succeeding and behind an array of more than seven years of optimistic statements by U.S. senior leaders in Afghanistan?” Lt. Col. Daniel Davis asked in a four-page essay titled “Truth, Lies & Afghanistan: How military leaders have let us down.”
(Army Times)

Pentagon opens ‘Tweet’ offensive in cyberspace. The Pentagon on Monday launched a new campaign — in bursts of 140 characters per message. The Defense Department (@DeptofDefense) held its first Twitter town hall, and the nearly hour-long session addressed questions from “don’t ask, don’t tell” to the Middle East to cyber security...
(Washington Times)

Military to screen all mobile apps. The Ministry of National Defense said Tuesday that it would screen all smartphone applications and renew the blacklist of pro-North Korean or anti-government mobile apps. It will be the first full-scale crackdown by military authorities on smartphone programs. The ministry said it would base its list on the Korea Telecommunications Commission’s guidelines...
(Korea Herald)

FRYE: Complaining on social media sites fails to incite real political change. It's not like they haven't had things to be upset about. This past year, we saw the American government nearly collapse during the budget debate, and the deficit talks over the summer left much to be desired. Occupy Wall Street burst onto the scene in the fall...
(Daily Nebraskan)

Last Briton to serve in WWI dies at 110. Florence Green never saw the front line. Her war was spent serving food, not dodging bullets. But Green, who has died aged 110, was the last known surviving veteran of World War I. She was serving with the Women's Royal Air Force as a waitress at an air base in eastern England when the guns fell silent on Nov. 11, 1918...
(USA Today)

Military museum seeks hundreds of stolen wartime relics. Many were relics paid for with the blood of Canadian veterans: hundreds of medals and other military artifacts stolen from a Calgary war museum and sold for profit. Although a recent police investigation recovered some of relics stolen from the Military Museums of Calgary, most of nearly 600 items stolen from its collection have not been found...
(Calgary Herald)

Facebook Reunites High School Sweethearts After 43 Years. An Ashland City couple has credited Facebook with a reunion more than 40 years in the making.  David and Jeanne Boyd were high school sweethearts in the 1960s. "She was the prettiest girl on the dance floor," David said about the day they met.  "And I said oh, that's my girl."
(News Channel 5)

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Fellow military blogger David Marron of The Thunder Run has a detailed analysis on the current state of military blogs and examines the effect of the lack of milblogs as well as the future.

It is worth the read.

Here's an excerpt:

Do you wonder where all the blogs went that were being written by the soldiers on the frontlines? I do, I’ve been tracking these blogs for close to a decade now and for information on what is happening on the front lines you are pretty much now resigned to the major media outlets or the Department of Defense official reports, and the few blogs that are out there are primarily being written by civilians or contractors.

So what happened to the wide spread use of social media by the troops? The best I can tell is that they either went dark or completely private, meaning the blog owner has to approve you to view their posts, because Big Army has put the hammer down on anything that doesn’t reflect highly on the mission or the commanders.

CJ Grisham, a Master Sergeant currently serving in Afghanistan writes a blog called A Soldier’s Perspective. He is an outspoken blogger who doesn’t hold back when he sees someone doing the wrong thing, and has been in very public debates with local school districts as well as correspondents, but since late 2011 he hasn’t posted anything.

Major Zigenfuss, founder of Project ValOUR IT, and owner of the blog, From My Position…On the way!, who started blogging about his deployment to Iraq and then continued to blog after he was seriously wounded by an IED, is now deployed to Afghanistan, but his once vociferous blogging has also gone silent.

Milblogging.com, a site founded by JP Borda after his return from Afghanistan in 2004 catalogs Milblogs of every persuasion. He currently list over 3000 MilBlogs but a scant handful of them are being published from the frontlines, and on the list of recently updated blogs, none are being updated by soldiers on active duty, let alone deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Full story here.

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Space-A planning makes its way to Facebook. Already pumped about your big summer trip? If you’re going to try to get to your planned destination using space-A, things may be a little easier next time you fly. Nine passenger terminals in the space-available travel program — an Air Mobility Command entity that lets eligible military travelers fly at no cost on pre-planned flights — have started posting which flights are available and how many seats are on each flight for up to 72 hours on their Facebook pages...
(AirForceTimes)

Are journalistic ethics dead? In recent days, two dramatic photographs alleged to be depicting Israeli army brutality have gone viral. One, which circulated on Facebook, purportedly showed an Israeli soldier stepping on a Palestinian girl and pointing an AK-47 at her head. It was exposed as Bahraini anti-Israel street theater...
(Ynetnews)

SOFREP.com Launches: Special Operations Forces Report (SOFREP). Military.com contributing Editor (host of Kit Up) and former US Navy SEAL Brandon Webb has launched the most legitimate and comprehensive Special Operations media site on the Internet.  The site is SOFREP.COM, Special Operations Forces Report (SOFREP)...
(Kit Up!)

Scam artists claim to be deploying JBLM soldiers in bogus car ads.  Scam artists pretending to be Join Base Lewis-McChord soldiers are hocking cars on the web with deals  that sound too good to be true.  Officials at Lewis-McChord received serveral calls last week from would-be buyers who grew suspicious about claims made on web sites such as craigslist and cars.com...
(The News Tribune)

Army units cracking down on anti-Lee phone apps. A second military unit has blocked its troops from downloading smartphone applications critical of the Lee Myung-bak administration or deemed pro-North Korean, officials said Monday amid an ongoing debate over how to handle such politically sensitive material... 
(The Korea Times)

Hands-on: Apple iPhone 4S (without camera). Singapore operator M1 recently started selling Apple's iPhone 4 and 4S models that come without cameras. This was done in partnership with Singapore's Ministry of Defence (Mindef), to allow military personnel to use the popular smartphone in army camps. This is because cameras are generally not allowed at such locations due to security reasons...  
(CNET Asia)

U.S. Gov't Takes Up Mobile Challenge. Two of the American government's most IT-security sensitive organizations - the Army and National Security Agency - are looking for ways to employ smartphones to access selected IT systems.  Smartphones and their e-tablet cousins present a slew of security risks, serious ones that could compromise sensitive and classified information...
(GovInfoSecurity)

War hero's story finally told. The obituary will tell you that Bill Jarema was born in New York City on April 7, 1918, and died at Spruce Lodge in Stratford Jan. 30, 2012, in his 94th year. It mentions his career as a police detective in New York, how he retired to Florida and met Stratford native Mary McKellar, whom he married in 1973, eventually settling here...
(London Free Press)

Military Wives To Face X Factor Again: Debut Album For Marcus Collins Chart Fight. The Military Wives choir dethroned X Factor winners Little Mix in December to score the 2011 Christmas Number One, and the fastest-selling single this century. Next month they will do battle with another finalist from the talent show, as their debut album meets new material by Marcus Collins in the charts...
(EntertainmentWise)

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This Ain't Hell has been on a roll lately successfully calling out military imposters.  One of their latest discoveries even caught the attention of The Washington Post.

"Jonn Lilyea got some interesting e-mails earlier this week. A couple of his readers of his Web site had heard a “Marketplace” story about a former Army sniper who was struggling in this bad economy. “Both heard it commuting,” says Lilyea, and when they got home, they sat down and pinged Lilyea with links to the piece.

Those links were not endorsements. Quite the contrary.

Lilyea, a 56-year-old retired U.S. Army sergeant, runs a Web site — This Ain’t Hell — that exposes the distinct American species that falsely claims to have served in the U.S. military. The site has cultivated a community of sleuths who tip off Lilyea whenever the media surfaces some fellow with a tale that just doesn’t sound right.

Such was the case with the “Marketplace” story, a first-person testimonial from Leo Webb, who in a short segment managed to claim 17 kills as an Army sniper, a spell in the Chicago Cubs’ farm system, and a moment in which he witnessed a killing outside a Rite-Aid pharmacy. “When one of these phonies pops up, [his sleuths] start looking for e-mail addresses and phone numbers and start hammering them,” says Lilyea, who lives in West Virginia. “My readers are a vocal bunch.”

More at the Washington Post.

You can read the original Marketplace story and see a pic of Leo Webb over at This Ain’t Hell.

If you ever met this guy in person, I imagine Army sniper and pitcher for a Chicago Cubs minor-league team is the last thing you'd guess about him. 

Jelly doughnut-eating contest champion, yes. 

17 confirmed kills in the Army, mmm, not so much.

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NA men may continue using Facebook. Officials of the Nepal Army (NA) will continue using social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter, even as their counterparts in India have lately been directed to quit such sites for fear that sensitive information may be leaked. “We don´t have any policy to bar our officials from joining social networking sites and NA is not planning to come with such directives anytime soon,” said NA Spokesperson Ramindra Chhettri. He, however, added that the officials must stick to work ethics and will not be allowed to use such sites during office hours...
(MYREPUBLICA)

A story of war told through grandparents' letters. Once upon a perilous time, homesick GIs wrote to lonely sweethearts back in the states when the world was at war and the future uncertain. In those days of World War II -- long before e-mail, tweets and other forms of instant messaging -- they poured their hearts out in handwritten missives that could take weeks or even months to arrive...
(Cleveland.com)

War Torn: An Iraq War Veteran's Story. Ian Welch was on his first combat tour in Iraq, waiting to storm across the Diyala Bridge and seize Baghdad, when an artillery round exploded behind him--changing his life forever. Now he and his girlfriend Katie are hoping love can change it back...
(The Wall Street Journal Digital Network)

In Their Own Words: Letters tell stories of war. Periodically in the News Sentinel's continuing series about the Civil War, we come upon letters from the 'average' people — soldiers, wives, citizens. Reading what they were thinking and writing about helps show history from another angle. The University of Tennessee Libraries' Special Collections staff shared two letters written in February 1862 — one by a Union soldier and the other by a Tennessee woman whose husband was in the Confederate Army...
(Knoxville News Sentinel)

27th SOW Social Media: Dependents crucial part of conversation. Recent advances in social media have completely altered communication for today’s military families. Networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter enable them to share, connect and be part of events in real time. From base status updates to command messages, obtaining information has become as easy as loading an application on your smart-phone...
(Cannon Connections)

Cuba Denies Exit to Pro-Democracy Blogger Invited by Brazil. Cuba’s best-known pro-democracy blogger said she was denied permission to leave her country after Brazil granted her a visa ahead of President Dilma Rousseff’s state visit to the communist island last week. “There’s no surprise,” Yoani Sanchez said in a posting on her Twitter account today. “They again deny me permission to leave. It’s the 19th time they violate my right to enter and leave my country.”
(Businessweek)

U.S. government, military to get secure Android phones. Some U.S. officials this year are expected to get smartphones capable of handling classified government documents over cellular networks, according to people involved in the project. The phones will run a modified version of Google's Android software, which is being developed as part of an initiative that spans multiple federal agencies and government contractors, these people said...
(CNN)

Ex-soldier pleads guilty in Texas recruiting scam.  SAN ANTONIO (AP) — A former soldier in South Texas has pleaded guilty in a scheme to collect part of $244,000 in bonuses for referring recruits.The Justice Department says former Spc. Xavier Aves of San Antonio pleaded guilty Friday to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and to aggravated identity theft...
(Houston Chronicle)

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We all have our bad days, and it seems the VA has had another one.

According to FLORIDA TODAY, Army veteran Jerry Miller was declared dead by the Department of Veterans Affairs and asked to pay back nearly $95,000 in benefits.

“We’re are sorry to learn of the death of the beneficiary and wish to express our sympathy.”

“I really thought it was a joke,” Miller said of the letter addressed to the Representatives of The Estate of Jerry L. Miller. “I’m still alive. I’m very much alive.”

Miller, 57, said the first letter came in June of last year and after being cut off from receiving his VA check for about three months, he started falling behind on paying bills. It apparently was corrected, but only a few months later, the problem resurfaced.

So apparently the VA sent a letter four times, which is kind of hard to imagine. 

I mean, it's not like accidentally getting your next door neighbor's mail or some unwanted coupons. 

You really can’t get worse junk mail than Jerry Miller.

Source

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Content awareness important for Facebook users, Family members. Servicemembers as well as their friends and Family members need to be mindful of what they post on their Facebook profile pages. Soldiers are personally responsible for all content they publish on social media sites, blogs or other websites, but a Soldier’s friends and Family members also need to be aware of what they post. A friend or Family member’s post can put a Soldier and his/her unit in danger. It could also potentially damage the Soldier’s career so it’s up to the Soldier to properly educate Army Families on appropriate social media use. "Families and friends must understand operational security," said Staff Sgt. Dale Sweetnam, Online and Social Median Divison, Office of the Chief of Public Affairs. "They need to know what they can and cannot post."
(Belvoir Eagle)

Obama's Google+ Debut: Lessons Learned. In the latest twist on open government, President Obama Monday participated in his first Google+ Hangout, a real-time video meeting with a handful of citizens. The get-together demonstrated social media's potential for enabling a new kind of engagement between the public and the White House. It also revealed a few flaws with the process. The president participated in the webcast from the West Wing of the White House, while participants, selected by Google, joined from their homes in Illinois, New Jersey, and Texas, as well as from John F. Kennedy High School in Fremont, Calif...
(Informationweek)

New Google Blogger Changes Enable Country-by-Country Censorship. Google's implementation of country-level domains in order to comply with content-removal requests is similar to Twitter's recently announced policy of blocking tweets within a certain country when forced to do so by an applicable legal order, a move that sparked some criticism online. Internet freedom activists were largely okay with the move, saying that it struck a balance between the legal obligations of a company with global aspirations — it would be harder to apply U.S. law abroad and not local law with staff in each country — and the ideology of a company that has declared that the "tweets must flow."
(TechPresident)

Facebook gave Arab Spring a tool to organise.  Arab activists had long dreamed of revolt, but to dislodge their decades-old autocracies, and amid a widespread crackdown on street protests, they needed a tool and a space to organise. Enter Facebook. After years of sporadic anti-regime protests that were quickly quashed, activists from Tunisia to Egypt to Libya and Bahrain found a speedy, anonymous and efficient engine in Facebook and other Internet social networking sites.Social networks "for the first time provided activists with an opportunity to quickly disseminate information while bypassing government restrictions," Hussein Amin, professor of mass communications at the American University in Cairo, told AFP...
(AFP)

Story behind First World War photo revealed. MISSING details about the life of a First World War hero can finally be told today. This old snapshot was sent into the Chronicle by 89-year-old Elsie Kersley, who believed one of the men, from Newcastle, was her husband’s great uncle. And today, after help from readers, details of his army life can be revealed. Historians Tony Ball and Jeff Bennett believe Elsie’s ancestor George Edward Fender was the Sgt of a Royal Field Artillery battery, who served in the war. And having served with the C Battery of the 47th Brigade he was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal for bravery...
(ChronicleLive)

South Korean Indicted Over Twitter Posts From North. South Korean prosecutors indicted a social media and freedom-of-speech activist this week for reposting messages from the North Korean government’s Twitter account. Park Jung-geun, 23, a photographer who specialized in taking pictures of babies, was detained last month on charges of violating South Korea’s controversial National Security Law, which bans “acts that benefit the enemy” —North Korea — but does not clearly define what constitutes such acts...
(The New York Times)

Chennault museum to be featured in documentary. Chennault Aviation and Military Museum has been selected as the only organization in America to be featured in a documentary profiling three Americans who embody service to their country. Members of Ironcutter Media of New York were in Monroe late this week shooting the documentary at the museum. The project is being spearheaded by author Alivia Tagliaferri, who was introduced to the museum in September during the “Code of Support for our Troops” relay. The Code of Support Foundation also is a partner in the project...
(The News Star)

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Military blogger Jonathan Raab (With a Bible in my Ruck) is preparing for a deployment to Kuwait, but he won't be blogging from Mob station. Instead, he'll be tweeting.

"Follow me on Twitter under the name jpraab. I'll be using the opportunity to post about all the positives of deployment. Ahem", wrote Raab late last month.

He's staying pretty active on Twitter while at Camp Shelby. 

These are some of his recent messages.

-- I saluted a LT who had his hands full. "Really? No, sir? Ok." His frustrated mumblng made my day. #WinKuwait

-- 5 hours of briefings? Yes please!

-- There's a giant dead roach in the urinal trough. Read what symbolism into that you will. #WinKuwait

-- Giving Soldiers hardboiled eggs before they board cramped planes fosters espirit de corps and intestinal fortitude

-- Providing Soldiers with inadequate toilet paper is one method of teaching them resource management and personal discipline.

-- Paperwork snaffus build character. #UnsungMilitaryBenefits

I have to admit, it doesn't sound like much has changed since I was at Camp Shelby back in 2007. 

Oh, how I miss the roaches and inadequate toilet paper.  Good times.

Thanks to Kathi for the tip.

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